Method and system for detecting presence using a wifi network probe detector

ABSTRACT

The detection system monitors WiFi wireless communications at a wireless device and detects a probe request associated with a location. The WiFi device may be a dedicated presence detection device or may offer access to internet and other services as a WiFi access point. A device identifier associated with the originating device may be a component of the probe request. Using the device identifier, the system can detect the presence of a consumer at the location associated with the wireless communications device and transmit information to the consumer based upon the device identifier.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationNo. 61/273,040 entitled, “Method And System For Location-TriggeredInteractivity In Offline Environments” filed Jul. 29, 2009 and U.S.Provisional Patent Application No. 61/253,009 entitled, “Method AndSystem For Location-Triggered Interactivity In Offline Environments”filed Oct. 19, 2009, which are hereby incorporated by reference in theirentirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to the intersection of mobile and thephysical world, and specifically, to the use of mobile communicationdevices to facilitate improved consumer experiences in retailenvironments.

2. Description of the Related Art

In 1886, John Wanamaker, the inventor of department stores fromPhiladelphia, is said to have exclaimed “I know that half of myadvertising is wasted—I just don't know which half.” So, the problemwith a lack of useful offers and targeted ads started in offline retail.In the online shopping world over the past 15 years, search engines andbehavioral e-commerce targeting engines have helped to reduce the “50%waste.” In the physical retail world, however, Wannamaker's commentremains apt.

When a consumer watches a commercial for a store on TV, and the next daysees a promotion from the same store in the newspaper, there is no wayfor the store to know it is the same person. And when that person walksin and out of different stores afterwards, the retailers cannot knowthat either, and therefore, cannot make offers that matter to thatconsumer based on the preferences and previous offers they saw. Evenwhen the consumer finally walks into a specific store, the store ownerswill not be able to tell who the person is until . . . they are payingat the “point-of-sale” (POS) with their credit card or are showing theirstore loyalty card, i.e. until they are leaving the store, and it is toolate to add another item to the shopping basket. In summary, the “salesloop” in the physical retail world is broken. (Prior art methods forproviding purchasing incentives have historically taken place at thepoint of sale or worse yet, after a purchase is made. The current priorart includes examples of methods and processes that target real-timeincentive programs (see U.S. Pat. No. 6,292,786), and even processesthat try to influence the consumer at the point-of-sale (see U.S. Pat.No. 5,918,211).

In order to improve the consumer experience, an improved system would beuseful for identifying and/or tracking consumers, and for transmittingadvertising and rewards to individual consumers based upon theconsumers' interests, activities and locations.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates communications between mobile phones, stores and thesystem server;

FIG. 2 illustrates detection systems used to detect the locations of thecell phones;

FIG. 3 illustrates a system embodiment using sonic signaling to detectcell phones;

FIG. 4 illustrates a system embodiment using bar codes to detect cellphones;

FIG. 5 illustrates a system embodiment using WiFi RF signaling to detectcell phones;

FIG. 6 illustrates a flowchart of rewards transmitted to cell phoneusers;

FIG. 7 illustrates a flowchart for adjusting the rewards transmitted tocell phone users;

FIG. 8 illustrates a flowchart for redeeming the rewards by cell phoneusers;

FIG. 9 illustrates an adjustment of an algorithm used to determine therelevance of offers;

FIG. 10 illustrates a flowchart for transmitting the rewards to cellphone users;

FIG. 11 illustrates a map application used to create maps of stores; and

FIG. 12 illustrates the social network interaction between cell phoneusers.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

With reference to FIG. 1, the present invention includes a system andmethod for transmitting store advertising information directly toconsumers through their mobile phones 101. The system includes one ormore servers 201, cell phones 101 and one or more communicationsnetworks which can be cellular networks 219, the internet 222 and othernetworks including wired and wireless networks, LAN, WiFi, WiMax, etc.The server includes a microprocessor 114 that performs softwareinstructions. The microprocessor 114 is coupled to databases 203 thatstore information about the consumers, product and advertising and rulesfor distribution of the advertising and a rules engine 117 that is thesoftware instructions that are performs by the microprocessor 114. Eachcell phone 101 also includes a microprocessor 214 that runs an operatingsystem 216 and downloaded application software 218. The phone 101 alsohas memory and databases 220 for storing system offers and information.

One of the features of the inventive system is the ability to determinewhere the consumers are based upon the locations of their mobile phones101. Many mobile phones 101 are equipped with global positioning system(GPS) units 212 that provide precise location information. The cellphones can transmit this information to the system and the server candetermine how close a consumer is to a store 301. The system can alsodetermine if the consumer is within the store 301. If GPS is notavailable, various other location detection mechanisms can be used todetermine the location of the consumer and distance 309 from the store301.

Because the advertising transmitted by the inventive system can betargeted to each individual consumer, there is a much better correlationbetween consumers' interests and the transmitted advertising thantraditional advertising, such as print, outdoor billboards or televisionadvertising. Since the transmitted advertising is targeted based uponconsumer information and location, the inventive system will be able topredict the consumers' purchasing interest. For the first time, thebroken offline retail sales loop could be closed, with the inventivesystem, by using mobile phones, which are the only interactive mediumconsumers carry with them, including in the moment when they are aboutto or are in the process of shopping at physical retail stores.

The implications for both consumers and retailers are substantial.Through the inventive system, retailers can tailor their offers,advertising information and incentives/rewards to consumers along thewhole chain, from advertising, to promotions, to walking in and out ofdifferent stores, to walking into a specific store, to viral effectswhen consumers discuss retail experiences or products with theirfriends; then it is likely the consumer experience would improvedrastically with more useful offers, and for the retailers, the increasein efficiency of advertising spend, consumer basket size and close ratewould be substantial. In order to encourage activities that areassociated with purchasing, the inventive system provides rewards suchas points that can be accumulated and redeemed for merchandise at thestores, or for digital goods (song downloads, virtual goods etc).

It should be appreciated that the present invention can be implementedin numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, adevice, a method, a computer readable medium such as a non-transitorycomputer readable storage medium containing computer readableinstructions or computer program code, or as a computer program productcomprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable programcode embodied therein.

In the context of this document, a computer usable medium or computerreadable medium may be any medium that can contain or store the programfor use by or in connection with the instruction execution system,apparatus or device. For example, the computer readable storage mediumor computer usable medium may be, but is not limited to, a random accessmemory (RAM), read-only memory (ROM), or a persistent store, such as amass storage device, hard drives, CDROM, DVDROM, solid state drives,tape, erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or flash memory), orany magnetic, electromagnetic, infrared, optical, or electrical system,apparatus or device for storing information. Alternatively oradditionally, the computer readable storage medium or computer usablemedium may be any combination of these devices or even paper or anothersuitable medium upon which the program code is printed, as the programcode can be electronically captured, via, for instance, optical scanningof the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, or otherwiseprocessed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then stored in acomputer memory.

Applications, software programs or computer readable instructions may bereferred to as components or modules. Applications may be hardwired orhard coded in hardware or take the form of software executing on ageneral purpose computer such that when the software is loaded intoand/or executed by the computer, the computer becomes an apparatus forpracticing the invention, or they are available via a web service.Applications may also be downloaded in whole or in part through the useof a software development kit or toolkit that enables the creation andimplementation of the present invention. In this specification, theseimplementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may bereferred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps ofdisclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention.

A. Location-Based Personalized Offers

Experience from retail stores shows that the conversion rates from storevisits to actual purchases in the physical retail world is typicallybetween 25-60%, depending on the type of retailer, while for onlineretail sites conversions are typically only 1-3%. In other words, onceconsumers are entering a physical store, they are likely to actuallybuy; so the main challenge for physical retailers is to get consumers tovisit their stores, to produce more purchases within the store. One ofthe most effective methods to achieve purchasing is to make the rightoffers to the right consumers, i.e. relevant offers, rather than “thesame irrelevant offers to everybody.”

The present invention provides a mass-capable, scalable service thatallows targeted personalized rewards and offers based on identificationof the consumer's individual presence and profile not at thepoint-of-sale, but instead at the point-of-entrance to an offline,physical store, or shortly before the point-of-entrance. In order toincrease foot traffic, the inventive system provides members withpersonalized offers or discounts as soon as they walk into a store orwithin the proximity of a store.

Rather than providing the offers and rewards randomly, the inventivesystem has triggers that produce the offers and rewards. Varioustriggers can be detected by the system which can determine an optimumoffer that can be based upon consumer location and time. For example, inorder to stimulate purchases, personalized rewards and offers can betransmitted from the server to the mobile phone when the customer entersthe store, or when she/he gets close to a store (e.g. by preemptivelydownloading data relevant to a store, either when near the store orbecause the store is frequently visited, to avoid potential lack of thatdata in case of loss of wireless reception in the store; in variousembodiments, such preemptive downloading may be initiated by the clientand/or by the server).

With reference to FIG. 2, various systems can be used to determine thelocation of the cell phones including: GPS 205, WiFi 209, Wifi beaconidentification (without data connectivity), Cell Phone Signals (“CellID”) 211, short range RF signals 215 including RFID, BlueTooth, PANs,Sound or Sound Pattern Identification (e.g. ultrasonic sound) 219,Magnetic Field detection 221, 1-Dimensional or 2-Dimensional Barcodes,and/or Recognition of Device ID's (e.g. MAC addresses of cell phones).In other embodiments, the inventive system can have transmitter/sensors225 mounted at the entrance(s) of the stores that detect cell phones asthey enter and exit, or elsewhere in the store.

To determine when the user is crossing or has crossed a physicalthreshold, e.g. a store 301 entrance (which in turn triggerspersonalized rewards and offers), various techniques may be employedincluding: rapid degradation of GPS 205 signals, rapid improvement ofthe WiFi 209 signal, a combination of GPS 205 signal degradation andWiFi 209 signal improvement, a sudden decrease of location dataaccuracy, sound 219 identification (ultrasonic and/or sound patternrecognition), magnetic field 221 detection, RF signal detection, 1-D or2-D Barcode Recognition, Recognition of Device ID's (e.g. MAC addressesof cell phones), manual data entry, and/or other methods. The listeddetection methods are described in more detail below.

In an embodiment a trigger can include a rapid degradation of GPS 205signals. GPS 205 technology, including systems integrated into smartphones 101, typically determines location fixes by analyzing data fromseveral (e.g. four or more) satellites which are in a line-of-sight,i.e. “visible” (=unobstructed view) connections. When users of theservice walk into a store 301 or other enclosed location, the cellphones 101 frequently lose contact with one or more of the satellitesfrom which signals could previously be received (e.g. at least two outof four satellites) due to signals blocked by the walls and roof orother structures. Such rapid degradation of the GPS 205 signal can serveas a trigger for determining the consumer has entered the store 301, forexample in combination with the previous proximity to the storelocation, and other data.

Another possible trigger is the sudden availability of, or rapidimprovement of, a WiFi 209 signal. In addition to or instead of GPS,many cell phones 101 include WiFi transceivers. For in-buildinglocations of Wifi networks, such as stores, that require passing aphysical threshold such as a wall/door, passing through that thresholdcan result in a rapid improvement/strengthening of the WiFi signal. AWiFi 209 transmitter can broadcast a specific “ID” (also called SSID)i.e. its network name. Thereby smartphones 101 can detect specific storeWiFi 209 transmitters with (for example) a passive WiFi network scansuch as a PROBE request, and detecting its name or SSID. In anembodiment, the inventive system can detect the combination of generallocation information about the user, rapidly deteriorating GPS signalsand concurrent rapidly improving store WiFi signals, leading to higheraccuracy of determination that a service user has entered a store 301 orother known buildings such as malls.

Another possible trigger for offers and rewards is a sudden decrease oflocation data accuracy. Certain hardware or software platforms (e.g. themobile platform's software developer kit (SDK)) may obscure informationrelating to one or more location detection techniques, such as GPSsatellite information and/or WiFi access point availability, and/or mayprovide a location value (latitude, longitude) and an accuracyindication, rather than broken out by GPS 205 location data vs. WiFi 209location data vs. other location values. A sudden decrease in accuracyof the location value (e.g. an accuracy level rapidly going from a 10 ftradius to a 100 ft radius), in combination with general location data(e.g. latitude/longitude data that indicates that an individual is closeto a store) may be used to determine with higher accuracy that a serviceuser has entered a store or specific building. An example of such anerror radius is the “horizontalAccuracy” value associated with theiPhone Core Location class.

In an embodiment, a sound generator 219 is deployed inside each store301, which emits sounds inaudible to humans (e.g. ultra-sonic sound),but still detectable to a mobile phone 101 application via the mobilephone's microphone. An example of ultrasonic sound is sound at afrequency above the common range of human hearing (e.g. at least 18 Khz,or at least 19 KHz, or at least 20 KHz) but at or below the upper limitof the frequency response of the microphone in the mobile phone, and theNyquist frequency of the audio pathway of the mobile phone (i.e. half ofthe sampling rate of the audio input, which for example at a samplingrate of 44.1 KHz results in an upper frequency bound of 22.05 KHz). Insome embodiments, a frequency above the Nyquist frequency (but stillbelow the upper limit of the frequency response of the microphone) maybe used in combination with filtering to reduce artifacts, or amodulation scheme designed to be robust in the presence of artifacts.The combination of the latest location fix information and the detectionof sonic signaling (including ultrasonic signaling) can serve as alocation identification to the system service that a store 301 has beenentered. In some embodiments, a minimum threshold sonic signal strength,or a rapid increase in the strength of a sonic signal, may trigger sucha location identification.

Sonic signaling as used herein refers generally to the transmission ofinformation, such as an indication of a store associated with the originof the sonic signal, using sonic (including ultrasonic) signals. Oneexample of sonic signaling is a signal in which one or more frequenciescorrespond to various signal values, e.g. DTMF or DTMF frequency-shiftedinto ultrasonic frequencies. Another example of sonic signaling is touse amplitude shift keying. Another example of sonic signaling is to usefrequency shift keying. Another example of sonic signaling is to usephase shift keying. In some embodiments, multifrequency signaling suchas spread spectrum communications, or a multifrequency carriersignaling, may be used. An example of multifrequency carrier signalingis to designate a predetermined set of frequencies (for example, between20 KHz and 22 KHz, or between 20 KHz and 24 KHz, or generally between alower bound between 19 KHz and 20 KHz and an upper bound equal to orslightly below the Nyquist frequency for the sampling rate of anintended receiver) separated by an interval, such as an interval ofbetween 40 Hz and 100 Hz, such as approximately 65 Hz, and for each suchfrequency, encode a “1” bit as the presence of a carrier signal, such asa sine wave at the frequency, and a “0” bit as the absence of such asignal. A receiver of such a multifrequency signal may then perform FastFourier Transforms or related techniques known in the art to identifywhether carriers are available at each relevant frequency, and deduce aset of bits, encoding a number, thereby. In some embodiments ofmultifrequency carrier signaling, for example when a signal isinsufficiently unambiguous, multiple samples may be taken over time andaveraged, then the average signal may be processed as described above.In some embodiments of multifrequency carrier signaling, a Viterbidecoder may be used to decode the bit patterns, for example if thefrequencies are sufficiently close as to cause interference. In general,techniques known to those skilled in the communications arts, especiallywith respect to modulation and demodulation (e.g. modems), may beemployed. Examples of such techniques include the various modemstandards designated as V.x (where x is an integer) promulgated by theInternational Telecommunications Union, Sector T, which are incorporatedherein in their entirety by reference for all purposes. Acoustic echocancellation techniques known to those skilled in the audiocommunications arts (for example a finite impulse response filter withgradient descent parameter vector updates using LMS, RLS, LMF, or othercost functions known to those skilled in the art; or as disclosed in USPatent Applications Nos. 2009/0225997, 2009/0147942, and/or2009/0141907, which are herein incorporated by reference in theirentirety for all purposes) may also be employed. Examples of ultrasoniccommunications are discussed in Justin Shumaker, “Designing anUltrasonic Modem for Robotic Communications,” Army Research Laboratorypublication ARL-TR-4754; T. L. Murphy, “Ultrasonic Digital CommunicationSystem for a Steel Wall Multipath Channel: Methods and Results,”Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, December 2005; Vadim Gerasimov,“Things that Talk,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 1996;Vadim Gerasimov et al, “Things that Talk: Using Sound forDevice-to-Device and Device-to-Human Communication,” IBM SystemsJournal, Volume 39, Issue 3-4 (July 2000); and Chuan Li et al,“Short-Range Ultrasonic Digital Communications in Air,” IEEETransactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics, and Frequency Control,Volume 55, Number 4 (April 2008), all of which are incorporated hereinby reference in their entirety for all purposes.

In some embodiments, if a client (e.g. a mobile phone) fails to decode asignal, when (for example by a power check) a signal has been detectedor has been detected to be likely, the raw signal, or a characterizationtherefrom, such as compressed samples, or output from one or moreFourier transforms, may be transmitted to a server, which may return aresult of decoding or other result such as a store identifier. In someembodiments, a server may perform signal analysis to determine theencoded data. In some embodiments, signals may be stored at the serverand provided to personnel for refinement of transmission and/orreception techniques. In some embodiments, a server may combine thesignal information with other information, such as a last known location(e.g. by GPS, cellular tower triangulation and/or WiFi networkdetection) and a time at which the location was known, to disambiguatethe signal by selecting a store that is likely to correspond to thesignal that is plausible given the last known location. An example of aplausible location is a location near such a last known location.

With reference to FIG. 3, in some embodiments, sonic signaling may beperformed by a transmitter 382. In some embodiments, a transmitter 382is a hardware system that incorporates a signal generator such asprocessor 384, such as a microprocessor, microcontroller, or digitalsignal processor (for example a PIC microcontroller available fromMicrochip Technology, Inc., a TMS320 series processor from TexasInstruments, an ARM based processor such as an ADuC7xxx from AnalogDevices, Inc., an ADuC8xx, ADSP21xx, or SHARC from Analog Devices, Inc.,etc.) connected to a memory 386 (for example, DRAM or SRAM, which insome embodiments may be integrated with the processor) containingprogram instructions executable by the processor, and/or data used bythe program. A transmitter 382 may also incorporate persistent memory388, such as a flash memory, coupled to the processor and/orincorporated into the processor. The signal generator may generate theultrasonic signal that is transmitted as described above. In someembodiments, a waveform for transmission may be stored in persistentmemory 388, which in various embodiments may be either precalculated andpersistently stored or generated by signal generator 384. In someembodiments, a transmitter 382 includes a power supply and/or a battery,which provides power to the other components. A transmitter 382 includesa sonic transducer 390, for example a piezoelectric transducer thatconverts electrical impulses to ultrasonic vibrations. A transmitter 382includes an amplifier 392 coupled (directly or indirectly, for examplevia an audio Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC), which in someembodiments may be integrated with the processor) to the processor 384,which provides electrical impulses through its output to the transducer390. In some embodiments, a transmitter 382 may include a networkinterface 394, such as an Ethernet connector or a wireless interfacesuch as a radio and antenna suitable for 802.11 operation, through whichit may receive and/or transmit data such as detected devices, orID-related information as described below. In some embodiments, atransmitter 382 may include an interface suitable for coupling to acomputer 399, such as a USB interface or a network interface, throughwhich software and/or data (such as data relating to IDs as describedbelow) may be updated. In some embodiments, a transmitter 382 mayincorporate a microphone 398, and may be capable of receiving sonicsignaling as well as transmitting signals. In some embodiments, atransmitter 382 may be incorporated into a wireless access point orother networking customer premise equipment, and may include a networktransceiver capable of performing communications such as those describedabove. In some embodiments, transmitter 382 may include a real-timeclock and/or a receiver for receiving broadcast time signals. In someembodiments, transmitter 382 may include an encrypter, which for examplemay be program instructions executing on processor 384, or may beseparate integrated circuitry. In some embodiments, transmitter 382 mayinclude an error correcting code generator and/or an error detectingcode generator, which for example may be software instructions executingon processor 384, or may be separate integrated circuitry. Thetechniques described herein regarding transmission and reception ofsonic signaling may be performed at a transmitter 382 as describedherein in a manner that will be readily understood by those skilled inthe art.

In various embodiments, detection of sonic signaling may be performedcontinuously, intermittently (e.g. once every minute, or once every tenminutes), and/or in response to a stimulus, such as detection that amobile device 101 is near one or more stores and/or is moving, and/or anassertion being received from a user that he or she is entering a store.In the case of a trigger, detection may be performed for a predeterminedperiod of time from the time of the trigger, such as one minute, or inresponse to one or more continued stimuli, such as continued motion. Insome embodiments, to decrease power consumption, an easily detectablecarrier signal, such as a sine wave 378 modulated at a predeterminedfrequency, may be generated by a transmitter 382 and detected at amobile phone 101 by a microphone 380, which may then trigger morecomputationally expensive demodulation processing. The cell phone 101may respond to the transmitter 382 by emitting an ultrasonic signal thatis detected by the microphone 398. In some embodiments, such powerefficiency may be achieved by measuring the energy at a frequency rangein which the transmitter operates, and demodulating if the energyexceeds a threshold.

In some embodiments, sonic signaling may be used to indicate storepremises, without encoding additional information. In some embodiments,sonic signaling may encode a store identifier (ID), for example anumeric identifier or an encoding of a string. Such a store ID may bereceived at a mobile phone 101 and interpreted as an assertion ofpresence at the associated store. In some embodiments, a transmittedstore ID may be obscured, changed, encrypted, or otherwise protectedfrom unauthorized access. In one example, a store ID may be combinedwith another value at the transmitter (for example a pseudorandomnumber, a number in a predetermined sequence such as an encoded time, ora sequentially generated number) and encrypted (for example using onehalf of an asymmetric key pair such as an RSA public/private key pair).Such a transmission may be received at a mobile phone 101 and eitherdecrypted there using the other half of the asymmetric key pair, ortransmitted to a server, where it is so decrypted and optionallytransmitted back to the mobile phone, and the store ID may be separatedand processed. In another example, a transmitter 382 connected to anetwork such as the internet 222 may receive an ID from a server 201,and may transmit that ID, either alone or combined with a store ID asdescribed above. The server may vary IDs on a fixed or variableschedule, and may transmit one or more ID's associated with stores toclients at mobile phones 101. In another example, a transmitter (or acomputing device connected to a transmitter via a network such as anEthernet network or a wireless network, or via a physical connectionsuch as USB) may vary keys or identifiers according to a fixed schedule(such as once a day or once a week), for example according to a sequencecreated a priori, or according to a pseudorandom number generator suchas linear congruential sequence generator. A server 201 may generate orretrieve corresponding keys, and may transmit one or more keys to mobileclients which are valid for a store at any given time (for example,including one or more keys before and/or after the key that expected tobe currently used, to account for clock drift and for vagaries in keyupdates to a client), or may verify validity of a key when requested bya client. In this context, a key may be either an alternate identifieror a component of an identifier, such as a value combined with the storeID and encrypted as described above. In another example, achallenge/response protocol may be employed. For example, a client maygenerate a pseudorandom nonce value and transmit it to a beacon (forexample using ultrasonic signaling), and the beacon may encode theidentifier (or a portion thereof, such as a store IDf) together with thenonce, encrypt the result and transmit it to the client, where it may beverified. In some embodiments, a cryptographic hash (such as an MD5,SHA1 or SHA512 hash) may be employed in the above-described examples,for example by keying a hash using a key as described above, andverifying against an independently generated key hash at the mobileclient or a server that receives it from a mobile client. Suchverification may be done against candidate store IDs, for example IDsassociated with one or more stores nearby the mobile phone's last knownlocation.

In some embodiments, unsynchronized clocks, as occurring in time-varyingcodes, may be re-synchronized. An example of re-synchronizing a clock isfor clients (e.g. mobile phones) to report to a server what codes theyare receiving, and for the server to determine, based on reports ofcodes received, that de-synchronization (which may, for example, be dueto clock drift, or loss of power at a transmitter) has occurred. Basedon that occurrence and the evidence of time being used at a transmitteras received from clients (for example, by more than a threshold numberof clients, such as three, or a threshold percentage of clients during apredetermined period of time, such as at least 90% of clients reportingwithin two days), a time associated with the transmitter at the servermay be updated to reflect the data received from clients.

In some embodiments, sonic signaling may encode other information, suchas consumer offers, product or service information, technicalinformation, or any other information deemed relevant to the applicationthat receives it. This information can be fed to the store transceivervia the Internet, e.g. through a Wifi connection that allows remoteaccess to the store transceiver via secure data connections. In anotherembodiment, the mobile device can emit ultrasonic sound information thatis picked up by the store transceiver.

In some embodiments, data sent by sonic (or other) signaling may beprocessed to include an error correcting code, such as a BCH code, aConstant-weight code, a Convolutional code, a Group code, a Golay codesuch as a Binary Golay code, a Goppa code, a Hadamard code, aHagelbarger code, a Hamming code, a Latin Square based code, aLexicographic code, a sparse graph code such as a Low-DensityParity-Check code, an LT or “Fountain” code, an Online code, a Raptorcode, a Reed-Solomon code, a Reed-Muller code, a Repeat-accumulate code,a Repetition code such as Triple modular redundancy code, a Tornadocode, a Turbo code, or other error correcting codes known to thoseskilled in the art. In various embodiments, such codes may be applied ina single dimension or in multiple dimensions, may be combined, and maybe combined with error detecting codes such as parity and cyclicredundancy checks. Error correcting codes may be decoded and applied tocorrect transmission and/or reception errors at a receiver, or at aserver receiving communications from a receiver, according to theirrespective techniques. In some embodiments in which different potentialreceivers are capable of different frequency ranges, a frequencyspectrum that is interpretable by all potential receivers may beallocated to data and potentially some error correcting codes, and anadditional frequency spectrum that is interperable by some but not allpotential receivers may be allocated to additional error correctingcodes. For example, if a first receiver is capable of 48 KHz sampling,with a corresponding Nyquist frequency of 24 KHz, while a secondreceiver is capable only of 44 KHz sampling, with a correspondingNyquist frequency of 22 KHz, then data and sufficient error correctingcodes may be transmitted using 20 KHz-22 KHz spectrum, and additionalerror correcting codes may be transmitted using 22 KHz-24 KHz spectrum.Each receiver would then interpret and use whatever signals they werecapable of.

In some embodiments, distance between a mobile phone 101 and a sonictransceiver may be calculated using timing information, such as the timerequired for a roundtrip using ultrasonic signaling. Multiple sonicsignaling beacons may also be triangulated to determine the location ofa mobile phone 101 within a store.

Another method for detecting a consumer within a store is the detectionof a change in the ambient magnetic field 221. With reverence to FIG. 2,a magnetic field 221 can be created in a location or store, through amagnet, or through an electrically induced field. This magnetic energycan be detected by mobile devices 101 with magnetometers. In a furtherembodiment, magnetic field 221 can be a sequence of magnetic fieldstrengths or polarizations (or other variations) that encodes a storeID, for example as discussed above with regards to sonic signaling. Sucha magnetic field 221 typically gets weaker immediately outside the store301, or will not be detectable for the phone at all anymore, due to thegeneral rapid degradation of magnetic fields over short distances.

Another method for detecting a consumer within a store is to detect achange in the acoustic properties that indicates that a consumer isindoors, for example by detecting acoustic echoes characteristic ofbounces between walls, floors and/or ceilings. Knowledge that a mobilephone is indoors may be combined with information about the last knownlocation of the mobile phone to determine which store has been entered.

Another method for detecting a consumer within a store is to play withinthe store an audible sound such as music that is temporally known to aserver (e.g. by a prearranged playlist, by the server providing thesound to the store, or by a microphone within the store transmittingsound to the server). Sound detected at a mobile phone can then beidentified with respect to sounds known to be present at stores near themobile phone, to determine where the mobile phone is.

Another method for detecting a consumer within a store is therecognition of 1-dimensional barcodes, 2-dimensional barcodes (e.g. QRcodes) or other unique pictures. With reference to FIG. 4, in thisexample, a cell phone user discovers a sign 644 in the store (e.g. atthe cash register or at the entrance of the store) advertising rewards,e.g. with a message such as “Get your rewards for visiting by scanningthis barcode (or picture) with your cell phone using MOBshop!” 646,followed by the display of a barcode 648 unique to the store (containinga store ID), or a unique image. The user can then use the built-incamera 662 of the cell phone 101 to take a picture of the unique barcodeor image, or capture it without taking a picture (i.e. simply by holdingthe phone in front of the sign with the camera active), and recognitionsoftware 218 in the phone application or on the server 201 would returnthe store identification and determine the specific user's presence inthe store, so that the rewards and specific offers can be rendered tothe phone app. Each store has a different barcode or picture, therebyallowing a clear identification.

Another method for detecting a consumer within a store is to provide adisplay that rotates identifiers on a fixed schedule, or in coordinationwith a server to which it is connected. The operation of this display issimilar to an RSA SecurID token, available from RSA Security, Inc. Invarious embodiments, a user takes a picture of the display including theidentifier (which in various embodiments may be a numeric identifierand/or a barcode identifier) and the identifier is extracted, or theuser enters the identifier into his or her mobile phone, and it iscorrelated with the store ID presently displaying the identifier. Insome embodiments, multiple geographically distinct stores may displaythe same identifier, in which case the store displaying the enteredidentifier which is closest to the user's last known location may beused.

With reference to FIG. 5, another method for detecting a consumer withina store is the identification of the user's device ID. Electronicdevices that can be connected to many types of networks, including cellphones 101, have a unique device identifier known as a MAC address. Whenthe user walks into a store that is Wifi-enabled (see e.g. “IEEEStandard for Information Technology—Telecommunications and InformationExchange Between Systems—Local and Metropolitan Area Networks—SpecificRequirements, Part 11: Wireless LAN Medium Access Control (MAC) andPhysical Layer (PHY) Specifications” (IEEE Std. 802.11-2007), IEEEComputer Society (June 2007), which is incorporated herein by referencein its entirety for all purposes) with WiFi enabled on his or her mobilephone 101, the mobile phone 101 will commonly send out a periodic PROBErequest frame. Such a PROBE request may be detected by a Wifi device 606affiliated with a store. In various embodiments, a WiFi device 606 maybe a dedicated presence detection device, or may offer access tointernet and other services as a WiFi access point, in a manner known tothose skilled in the art, for example by permitting a device to connectto the WiFi device 606, assigning an IP address via DHCP, and enablingnetworked communications with the internet. A WiFi device 606 mayinclude a wireless antenna and a wireless receiver and optionaltransmitter (or a transceiver combining such functions), as well as aprogrammable processor and a memory such as a DRAM and/or Flash memory.Such a device 606 may transmit the MAC addresses of devices 101 thathave been encountered (or of certain devices, such as devices that areencountered which have not been previously encountered within a fixedperiod of time, such as five minutes, and/or devices whose MAC addressesmatch a pattern, such as one or more prefixes, corresponding to one ormore classes of mobile phones, and/or devices whose MAC addresses do notmatch a pattern, such as one or more prefixes and/or a list of excludeddevices) to a MOBshop server 201 through the internet 222. In someembodiments, devices that are determined to be associated with a storeemployee or other personnel who are frequently present may be added to alist of excluded devices, for example by identifying such devices bytheir exceeding a threshold amount of presence in a predetermined periodof time, such as four hours in a day, or twenty hours in a week. In someembodiments, such MAC addresses may be accumulated in a memory, such asa DRAM or Flash memory, prior to transmission. In some embodiments,transmission may be made via WiFi, over the internet, using a wiredconnection, and/or using a VPN over SSL or IPSec. At the MOBshop server201, a MAC address received from a store may be matched against MACaddresses of MOBshop users (which for example may be programmaticallydetected at mobile phones 101, optionally with user permission, andtransmitted to and stored at MOBshop servers). If a MAC address match isfound, then MOBshop can assign the correct rewards to the user, and makethe right relevant offers.

In some embodiments, a MAC address match may be used to notify a user toexecute a MOBshop application on his or her mobile phone 101. Forexample, a MAC address match as described above may indicate that aparticular user is present at a particular store. This information maybe cross-checked with information relating to which users are currentlyrunning a MOBshop application (which may for example be determined bywhether a last call from that user's mobile phone to a MOBshop API wasmade within a predetermined period of time, such as ten minutes). If itis determined that the user is not presently running a MOBshopapplication, then a message may be sent to the user (for example usingSMS or Apple's Push Notification Service) advising the user to run theapplication. In some embodiments, such a message may include informationabout a benefit of running the application, such as a total amount ofdiscounts available to him or her, or an example of a discount.

In some embodiments, multiple devices, such as WiFi devices detectingMAC addresses and/or sonic signaling devices, may be employed totriangulate the location of a mobile phone within a store usingaccessibility and/or signal strength. Such techniques are known to thoseskilled in the art. Such in-store locational data may be correlated withinformation regarding classes of merchandise within a store (for exampleby determining which from among a set bounding rectangles associatedwith a class of merchandise in the store contains the determinedlocation), and such data regarding what products a user is inferred tohave spent time looking at may be used in targeting. In someembodiments, time may be used as a factor in such analysis, i.e. bydiscarding categories of merchandise in which users spent little time(e.g. because they were simply in transit), while counting a class ofmerchandise as one for which the user spent more time shopping as beingof interest to that user when the time within a region defined for thatclass of merchandise exceeds a threshold, such as two minutes. In someembodiments, both transitory presence (e.g. for tracking foot traffic)and persistent presence (e.g. for determining shopping interests) may betracked.

In some embodiments, MAC address information and/or in-store locationaldata may be tracked and provided to partners, such as retailers, toassist in understanding customer behavior. In various embodiments, suchinformation may be provided for all relevant devices encountered,whether they are known users or not, for users who have opted in, and/orfor users who have not opted out, and may or may not be anonymizedbefore providing to the partner. An example of anonymizing suchinformation is to replace the MAC address with a different correspondingidentifier, which in various embodiments may (for example) be randomlygenerated, hashed, or sequentially assigned. Another example ofanonymizing such information is to provide patterns rather thanuser-specific information, such as characterizations of overlap invisitations with other retailers or classes of retailer. An example ofsuch patterns is a series of one or more matrices based on differenttime periods (e.g. last day, last week, last month, last year) with asummary number of the number of shared visitors between a partner andvarious other retailers or classes of retailers. Such a matrix may, forexample, be encoded as a set of key/value pairs in which the key is aretailer or class of retailer, and the value is the number of usersobserved at the partner (or at another targeted retailer) which werealso observed at the retailer or class of retailer corresponding to thekey during the time period of characteristic of the matrix. In someembodiments, entries for zero-valued pairs may be omitted altogether,e.g. to reduce the data requirements for sparse data. In someembodiments, matrices depending on each time period may be encodedtogether, for example using a hierarchical structure such as XML, inwhich the time period is a child of the retailer or class of retailer,or vice-versa.

In some embodiments, other sources and forms of location data can beused to determine consumer location. Some stores include in-store WiFi209 beacons which are a simplified version of WiFi. These beacons areessentially WiFi 209 transmitters that may not be connected to theinternet, but still transmit a unique SSID that will be different foreach in-store beacon, e.g. STORE_A126 (means Retailer A's store #126),or that are unique within a geography. This SSID is used by the serviceto identify the in-store presence of the user. This works by a “reading”the currently available SSID's through a mobile app on the user's devicevia a passive scan of a WiFi network such as a PROBE request. Theinventive system can determine that a user is within specific stores 301when the cell phone 101 detects the store's SSID, alone or incombination with the last known location of the mobile phone.

In other embodiments, other location detection methods can be usedincluding cell ID triangulation. Based on triangulation methods use celltower 211 data, this can give supplemental information. Some storesinclude Bluetooth transceivers 225. Consumers can also be identifiedthrough Bluetooth technology running both in the retail store 301 and onthe system application running on the cell phone 101. As the usercrosses the point-of-entry threshold and enters in the store 301, theBluetooth on the mobile phone 101 syncs with the Bluetooth networkenabled in the physical store 301, and passes a new status flag to theservice's server or in-phone app. Other RF signals that the cell phones101 may detect include NFC (Near Field Communication) signals and RFIDsignals which provide proximity detection to determine when a customeris close to a corresponding device that can be placed in a productstorage area in the store.

The cell phones 101 can also predict or improve the accuracy determiningthe threshold crossing (store entry) based upon data signals fromaccelerometers and compasses within the cell phones. Accelerometers andcompasses can be used to determine where a customer is moving within astore. Position information may indicate that the customer is in acentral area of a store and based upon the accelerometer and/or compassinformation, the system can determine which direction the customer ismoving. By comparing the user movement direction to a store layout, thedepartment the user is moving towards can be determined. Since moststores are not magnetically shielded and cell phones 101 cannot receiveGPS 205 signals, these alternative location detection systems provides ameans for estimating where the customer is moving when no other positionsignals are available (such as different Wifi transmitters that wouldallow for Wifi triangulation within the store).

In yet another embodiment, the consumer can input his or her locationinto the cell phone 101 which transmits the location information to theserver 201. This information can be combined with general location datato ensure that the proper offers and rewards are being provided to theuser. Rather than typing the name or address of the store, the user cantype in a specific “partner code” that is unique to the store (e.g.“383”) into the mobile service. This code can be displayed e.g. on awall inside in the store. The service combines the manual entry with thegeneral location information, and determines the threshold has beencrossed. In some embodiments, a mobile phone may determine its currentlocation and transmit it to a server. The server may generate a list ofcandidate stores near the reported location. A client program running onthe mobile phone may present the candidate locations, or a subsetthereof, to the user in a selectable list, and receive a selection ofthe store from the user.

In prior art embodiments, standard system sensors (such as an infraredsensors) 227 are placed at the entrance of each store which detectconsumers entering the store 301. However, sensor 227 systems such asinfrared entrance transmitters are not only costly to deploy forretailers, but more importantly, they cannot usually automaticallyidentify the individual person walking into the store 301. Thesestandard sensors may only know that “a” customer walked into the store,but may not be able to identify “who” came in. If the store 301 wants toindividually identify consumers via such sensor devices 227, the abovedescribed embodiments will allow this for the first time.

In a final embodiment, a system sensor transmitter 227 can be placed atthe entrance that transmits a signal that can be accepted by mobilephone 101 applications. In this embodiment, a signal from a systemtransmitter is received at a consumer's cell phone 101 from eachretailer at each entrance as they walk through the door and transmittheir profile to the retailer's device. The store 301 system then sendsa signal to the system server 201 that the user is in a store 301.

Various techniques may be employed to reduce the probability of fraud inthe reporting of presence at a store. In some embodiments, an assertionof presence at a store may be validated against various criteria such asthe last known location of the mobile phone and the time since the lastknown location and/or error radius of the mobile phone (which in someembodiments may be required to be instantaneous and/or received within ashort time threshold, such as ten seconds). If it is determined that itis unlikely that the mobile phone traveled from the last known locationsince the time of the last report, the assertion may be rejected. Insome embodiments, multiple sequential locational reports and/orassertions of presence in stores, and the times thereof, may be analyzedto determine whether it is plausible that the reports are accurate, andthe assertion may be rejected if it is determined not to be plausible,e.g. if it requires a rapidity of transit that is infeasible, forexample a velocity in excess of 80 miles per hour for over short (e.g.less than two hour) periods of time.

B. Rewards

Since consumers are likely to make purchases when they walk into aphysical store (typically 20-50 times more likely than when they visit aretail website online), incentives are provided for activity that isrelated to store visits. The inventive system can identify the locationsof the consumer and determine when they enter a store. In an embodiment,points which are redeemable for discounts at all participatingretailers, or for virtual goods, are awarded for activity that increasesthe likelihood of purchasing. No purchase is necessary in order toreceive the offers or discounts. Points can be given for the actionsincluding: entry into a store, duration of stay in the store,sweepstakes, surprise offers and games when the consumer is at thestore, possibly at a designated time and/or area within the store.

When a consumer walks into any store partnered with the inventivesystem, points are awarded. In an embodiment, five points are awardedfor entering a store, and the points can be used at all participatingretailers for future discounts (1 cent per point) or for song downloads.Specific rules can be automatically applied to the user's pointsaccount. For example, the points may be limited to a specific number ofentries per day. For example, a first entrance will be five points, asecond entrance will be three points and a third entrance will be onepoint for any single day. Alternatively, limitations may depend on thelevel of purchasing activity. A “gold status” member may be grantedpoints multiple times per day for store visits, while a “rookie status”member may be granted points only once per day (all softwarerules-based). The system may also determine the time between entrances.If the time between entrances is too short, the additional points maynot be awarded. The required time delay for additional points may be twohours. Also, to avoid fraud by “hackers,” the system may not awardpoints if a user supposedly enters one store, and a second store inanother location within minutes, although it is impossible to reach thatsecond store within minutes when using normal means of transportation.Certain other point conditions may apply. For example, if a customermakes a large purchase of $1,000, the subsequent store entrance that daywill be awarded full five points regardless of delay time.

In an embodiment, the duration of the customer's stay at the store canresult in additional points being awarded. For example, a point can beawarded for every ten minutes that the customer shops in the store. Thisrate of point accumulation may also decrease with time. For example, apoint may be awarded for the first ten minutes, but it may take anotherhalf hour in the store to receive the next point. In another embodiment,the frequency of store visits influence the number of points awarded.For example, double points may be awarded if the customer comes back tothe same store within a week, when his/her previous purchasing patternshows he/she usually visits the store only every other week.

When the customer is in the store, the system may provide other rewardssuch as: sweepstakes, surprise offers and games. The user's ID mayautomatically be placed in a sweep stakes drawing which can be awardedafter a set time period such as: daily, weekly, monthly, etc. This maydepend upon the value of the prizes. Small prizes can be awarded dailywhile larger more valuable prizes can be awarded weekly, monthly, etc.Surprise rewards can also be randomly transmitted. This can be set basedupon store traffic or customer activity. For example, a reward such aspoints or a discount can be transmitted to one or more customers after1,000 shoppers have entered the store. Alternatively, after the customerhas entered a store ten times, points or a discount can be transmittedto the customer. A customer may also automatically enter into asweepstakes, for example a sweepstakes as described above, when theyenter a store.

The rewards and offers are displayed on the cell phone. For example, anoffer of points for going to a store can be displayed as, “100 points towin for someone who walks into Store A today—presented by brand X!”Furthermore, surprise offers may show up on the customer's mobile phone,based on time intervals or other factors. For example, every nineminutes at a specific store, the customer may see a special surpriseoffer that can only be purchased at that price in the next 30 minutes.These surprise offers can be personalized based on shopping profile etc,i.e. Jenny may receive a different surprise offer than Dave.

Various games are possible. For example, in a “scavenger hunt” game,consumers may be able to gain rewards by finding certain items orinformation in the store, e.g. answer a question on their mobile device,e.g. “What is the lowest-priced TV set in this store? A: $299, B: $99,C: $399? Get ten points for the right answer!”

The inventive system can be used as a social network. The inventivesystem can display and publish the discounts gained by redeeming theiraccumulated system points for all to see or restricted to friends of thesystem members to see. The system may automatically post this to thecustomer's page on the system website.

In an embodiment, the rewards can be customized for each individualmember with different members receiving different rewards for the sameactivities. This can be useful when certain members are more likely topurchase more expensive items. For example, with reference to Table 1,consumer Jenny may receive the following rewards:

TABLE 1 ACTIONS REWARDS Entering store A  5 points Entering store B 10points Staying 5 min longer at store A  3 points Returning to store Awithin the Double points for both visits next 7 days Forwarding apromotion from Double points for both if her friend store A to herfriend uses the promotion and purchases the product Inviting her friendsto the service 5 points per friend who signs up, 10 per friend who usesthe service Post a promotion to her friends 1 point for every time oneof Jenny's friends clicks on the promotion Give her friend shoppingadvice 5 points for each advice on the service

In comparison, with reference to Table 2, consumer Dave may receive avery different set of incentives, based on his profile, and based onretailer partners' target demographics or preferred shopping patterns:

TABLE 2 ACTIONS REWARDS Entering store B 5 points Staying 5 min longerat store A 6 points Returning within the next 7 days Double points forboth visits to store A Forwarding a promotion from store 5 points forboth if her friend A to her friend uses the promotion and purchases theproduct Inviting his friends to the service 10 points per friend whosigns up, 20 per friend who uses the service Post a promotion to hisfriends 1 point for every time one of Dave's friends clicks on thepromotion Give his friends shopping advice 3 points for each advice onthe service

With reference to FIG. 6 a basic flow chart regarding user activityrewards is illustrated. The system first detects user activity 321. Theactivity is transmitted to the server which searches the user andrewards databases to determine the rewards points 325 for the user.Because the system can reward points at different rates, the activityrewards can be different for different system users. The system thenapplies the rewards to the user account in the user database 329 andtransmits the reward notification to the user 331.

The system observes shopping patterns and, by trial-and-error, and byforecasting methods based on other (similar) profiles, determines the“critical amount of rewards” that change an individual's purchasingpatterns. For example, it may take Jenny only 5 points to enter Store Amore often than before, but it may take Dave 15 points to change hispurchasing patterns. The system can then adjust the rewards to meet thecritical amount of rewards to increase purchasing by the user.

With reference to FIG. 7, a flowchart is shown that describes theiterative trial and error process by which the rewards are optimized foreach system user. The system can review the rewards, purchases andtime/date of purchases 341. The system can determine the critical amountof rewards required to change the user's purchasing patterns 343. Thesystem can also determine the times and dates that have the highest rateof changing the user's purchasing patterns. Based upon the amounts andalso possibly the times/dates of best results, the inventive system canadjust the amount of the transmitted rewards for the user to optimizethe purchasing patterns 345. The optimum purchase pattern can be theoptimum return on advertising. For example, large discounts can be givento users if these uses react by making large quantities of purchases. Incontrast, large discounts may not be given to users who make smallquantities of purchases even after being given large discounts.

The system accumulates and records the points and discounts obtained bythe customer. The system also allows the customer to easily redeem thepoints and discounts. It is well-known that a significant percentage ofrebates are never redeemed. While these unused rebates are profitablefor companies providing the rebates in the short-term, it can causefrustration for consumers, who lose the rebate value. This loss canresult in a poor customer experience, and thus lead to the loss ofvaluable customers in the long-run. Since the rewards and points are allawarded electronically, consumers can simply redeem points by tapping ona “redeem” button on the GUI displayed on their cell phone screen (orclick online on a web page). In response to the redeem command, theusers can receive the point value as a discount in the next transactionat the store they choose, or in the form of virtual items. Because theredemption process is greatly simplified and automated in comparison torebates that require forms to be filled out and proof of purchases to bemailed, the percentage of unredeemed points will be substantially lowerwith the inventive system and the customer experience should be greatlyimproved.

For example, after accumulating points, consumers can turn points intofuture discounts at all participating retailers or partners (or intovirtual items). In an embodiment, the user interface can display theoffers or rewards on the cell phone display. The user can tap on aspecific amount of points they want to redeem, e.g. “100 Points”, ontheir mobile phone in the inventive system service, and a message istransmitted to the MOBshop system service that 100 points should beturned into a discount at the next purchase at any or a specificretailer. For example, 100 points may, for example, be worth a discountof $1. This discount is automatically redeemed at the next purchase,with the methods described above.

In another example, after accumulating points, consumers can redeempoints for charitable donations, for example to a charity of theconsumer's choice from among a predetermined set of charities. Invarious embodiments, such charitable donations may be made on a monetarybasis with a fixed exchange rate as described above, or may be made at afixed number of points for an action performed by the charity. In someembodiments, donation totals for each of a set of predeterminedcharities may be accumulated during a time interval, such as one month,and a disbursement may be made to each respective charity (which may besubject to minimum amounts, which if not met may result in continuedaccrual) at the end of each such time interval, for the amount accruedwithin the time interval.

With reference to FIG. 8, a flow chart describing a process for offerredemptions is illustrated. As described above, the user requests thereward redemption 351. The system can search the user database todetermine if the requested quantity of points is available in theaccumulated rewards for redemption. The system can then transmit asummary of the points that will be used and the discount or rebate thatwill be applied 353. The user can have an opportunity to review andconfirm the transaction 355. If the transaction is cancelled, the systemwill wait for the next request for reward redemption. If the transactionis confirmed, the system will apply the reward points to the userpurchase 357. This can be done at the point of purchase after the storeconfirms the purchase (via a connection to the store's POS system), andthe system can transmit the discount which can be applied at the cashregister. Alternatively, the system can apply a rebate for the purchasediscount that is transmitted to the user and may be redeemed at aterminal or through a rebate mailed to the user. Once the transaction iscomplete, the system subtracts the used points from the user's accountand transmits a current account points to the user's cell phone and/orthe system's web site under the user's page 359.

C. In-Store-Location-Based Offers and Rewards

Location-based special offers also can be made in front of specificgoods, aisles or locations in the store. For specific offers on goods,the system may determine that the user is in close proximity to theproduct. For example, if a customer is detected in music section, anoffer may be transmitted for 50% off one CD when he/she buys two; or,when the customer is walking in the large appliance area, free homedelivery may be offered. The offers may change when the customer comesback a second or third time (e.g. increasing or decreasing incentives).The offers are personalized as mentioned before, so they may varydepending upon the customer and products.

The exact location triggers for in-store location determination caninclude: WiFi triangulation, NFC (Near Field Communication) technology,accelerometers and/or compass data processing, user input of in-storelocation or shopping aisle, or any other current or future source oflocation information. In an embodiment, a special system proximitytransmitter can be placed by the goods. When the user walks within therange of the proximity transmitter, the system can be triggered todisplay the offer for the goods. The transmitter can be part of apersonal area network which can utilize for example IrDA, Bluetooth,UWB, Z-Wave or ZigBee. Alternatively, it can be an ultrasonic sound (seethreshold entry detection methods described above). By placing thetransceiver close to the goods, this method ensures that the offer willbe received when the customer is at the proper location.

D. Personalized Offers with Automatic Discount Redemption

The offers are personalized via matching of available individual profiledata sets. Examples of individual profile data include: location;explicitly stated preferences, such as favorite stores and items, wishlist products and implicitly inferred user preferences, such as favoriteproduct categories or items or stores, based on clicks on items orstores. Individual profile data can also include “walk” history. Forexample, consumers who walk into high-end stores continuously are eitherhigh-value spenders or “fashionistas,” i.e. persons interested infashion trends. Individual profile data can also include: age, genderand demographic. This can be important in presenting offers. Forexample, young people who do not have children generally do not wantoffers for infant goods. Profile data can also include previous shoppinghistory, registered user information, such as demographic informationincluding: birth date, income, marital status, address and otherinformation. In an embodiment, the profile data can be used to determinethe most relevant offers and rewards that are most likely to be acceptedby the consumers based on a matching algorithm that assigns a weightedscore to each offer based on the individual's profile data set.

For example, if the system knows that the customer is a 25 year old malewho makes $50K per year and bought an iPod touch 2 weeks ago, it willcompare this purchase to a database of system users and determine that amajority of people in this demographic purchased iPod accessories withinone month of purchasing the iPod. Based upon this analysis, the systemwill determine that speakers, headphones and car charging systems arethe most relevant products to the customer and transmit offers for thisspecific type of goods. In another example, the system can determinethat a 38 year old woman who makes $95K per year who frequently visits(walks in and out of, or makes purchases at) a set of fashion stores islikely to be interested in offers from other fashion stores that otherwomen visit who have similar profiles and who also frequently walk inand out of the same stores the woman walks into.

The invention provides a method of assigning offers and/or rewards to atleast one user, comprising the steps of: 1) Receiving locationinformation about a user from his/her mobile phone, and 2) Matchingavailable individual profile data sets, e.g. location; explicitly statedpreferences, e.g. favorite stores and items, wish list products; andimplicitly inferred user preferences, such as favorite productcategories or items or stores, based on click (on items or stores) or“walk” history (e.g. consumers who walk into high-end storescontinuously are either high-value spenders or could be “fashionistas”),or based on gender and demographic; previous shopping history,registered user information, such as demographic information, (e.g.gender, birth date, income, marital status, address) with retail offersand information, to determine the most relevant information to theconsumers based on a matching algorithm that assigns a weighted score toeach offer based on the individual's profile data set.

In an embodiment, the algorithm can be:

Weighted Matching Score (WMS)=30% A+20% B+15% C+5% D+20% E+5% F+5% G

Where:

-   -   A=distance_from_store    -   B=gender_factor_for_product    -   C=age_match_to_product    -   D=favorite_category    -   E=favorite_product    -   F=previous_clicks_on_product    -   G=friend_recommendations

The higher the matching score for each of the weighted elements, thehigher the total score, and therefore the total match factor for theproduct (and the recommendation ranking to the individual user in thatmoment). In embodiments, each of the factors A-G can range from 0 to 10.

A factor is the user's distance_from_store factor. The factor decreaseswith the distance from the store. In an embodiment, the system cancalculate the distance_from_store factor based upon the road distancethe individual is from the store where the product is sold. See Table 3.

TABLE 3 Road Distance distance_from_store between user and store factorLess than 1 mile 10  1-2 miles 9  3-4 miles 8  5-9 miles 7 10-15 miles 616-20 miles 5 21-30 miles 4 31-50 miles 3 51-90 miles 2   90+ miles 1

In another embodiment, the rewards offered may increase with thedistance from the store, to entice consumers to drive there. Thisdepends on the store's policies and marketing objectives, or onMOBshop's objectives.

The gender factor can have fewer factor variations. If the product ispredominantly purchased by men by a ratio of 2 to 1, thegender_factor_for_product can be 10 for men and 5 for women. The genderfactor can vary for each product and can be based upon the purchaseratio determined by purchase research or estimated gender interest.

Another factor is the age association for the product. For example, ahigh age_match_to_product factor is assigned if the product is usuallybought by user profiles in a similar age group. For example, if theproduct was normally purchased by people between the ages of 21-25 yearsand the user is in this age bracket the age_match_to_product factor canbe 10. As the age of the user differs from the age of the people whowould normally purchase this product, the age_match_to_product factordecreases. TABLE 4 below provides an example of the decrease in thefactor.

TABLE 4 age_match_to_product User Age factor Less than 9 0 11-12 4 13-156 16-20 8 21-25 10 26-30 9 31-35 8 36-40 7 41-45 6 46-50 5 51-55 4 56-603 61-70 2 71+ 1

The factor values for favorite_category can be determined by looking atthe user's past purchase history. If the majority of the prior purchasedproducts are in the same category, this factor will be very high.Purchases made in related product categories will have a lower factorand if most of the user's purchases are made in an unrelated category,the favorite category will have a very low rating. Similarly, thefavorite_product factor can be determined by comparing the product tothe user's past purchases with a higher value given to closely relatedproducts. The previous_clicks_on_product can be determined by the numberof clicks the user has made on the product information. A higher valueis provided for a higher number of clicks. Finally, thefriend_recommendations factor can be proportional to the number offriends who recommend the product to the user.

Since, the example algorithm is based upon percentages that are appliedto each factor and a total of 100%, the weighted matching score will bea value between 0 and 10. In other embodiments, other algorithms can beused with different factor values and different weighted matchingscores. It may also be used to drive products into new user categories,e.g. by purposefully assigning higher match factors to consumer groupsthat have previously NOT bought the product or service frequently,leading to special offers provided to those groups. The algorithm canalso be periodically adjusted as the system determines the bestcorrelation between the listed factors or other factors and thelikelihood of purchasing the products. The algorithm can be applied to anumber of products being sold by a store and presented to the user in adescending order with the highest weighted matching score beingpresented first.

Based upon the weighted matching scores for various products, the systemcan cause the cell phone to display the most relevant retail offers andinformation. The system may transmit the offer information to the user'scell phone or alternatively, the offers may already be stored on thecell phone. The weighted matching scores can also be used to assign thepersonalized offers and rewards (such as reward points) based on thespecific location such being in the proximity of a retail store, in theproximity of a store competitor, approaching a retail store from aroadway, presence within the retail store. Note that where the productis inappropriate for a user or already been purchased by the userrecently, the system can assign a 0 value or other factor that canprevent the product offer from being given to the user. The system canbe configured to detect 0 value factors or other cancel indicators andremove these product offers.

Although the WMS algorithm is defined in an embodiment, the algorithmcan also be adjusted to each user in order to improve the relevance ofthe offers. With reference to FIG. 9, a flowchart is illustrated thatshows the process for adjusting the WMS algorithm. The system firstcompares the offers to acceptance of offers for a user 361. The systemcan determine the WMS facts that correspond to the offers being acceptedby the user and the factors that are not related to the acceptance bythe user 363. Based upon this information, the system can adjust the WMSalgorithm applied to each user or groups of users so that the factorsthat are more closely related to acceptance are weighted more heavilyand the factors that are unrelated to the user acceptance are lessweighted 365. By adjusting the weighting of the factors, the algorithmcan be tailored to the specific purchase characteristics of the user.

In some embodiments, consumer behavior may be adaptively mapped to thebehavior of other consumers, and recommendations may be made accordingto such mapping. Such a mapping may be combined with other criteria,such as distance from a store. Such mappings are known to those skilledin the art, and include collaborative filtering (for exampleitem-to-item recommendations based on purchases of items identical orsimilar to those featured in a promotion, promotion redemption,favoriting and/or viewing, and/or shopping activities), nearest-neighboranalysis, the use of linear regression analysis, Slope One, PearsonCorrelation, etc. Examples of recommendation systems that may be used(with item purchasing, promotion redemption, favoriting and/or viewing,and/or shopping activities used as inputs such as “ratings” in theliterature) include those discussed in Daniel Lemire et al, “Slope OnePredictors for Online Rating-Based Collaborative Filtering,” SIAM DataMining '05 (April 2005); Yehuda Koren, “The BellKor Solution to theNetflix Grand Prize,” Netflix Corporation (August 2009); Amar Saric etal, “Alternative Formulas for Rating Prediction Using CollaborativeFiltering,” Proceedings of ISMIS (Springer, 2009); Jonathan L. Herlockeret al, “Evaluating Collaborative Filtering Recommender Systems,” ACMTransactions on Information Systems, Volume 22, No. 1 (January 2004);and G. Adomavicius et al, “Toward the Next Generation of RecommenderSystems: a Survey of the State-of-the-Art and Possible Extensions,” IEEETransactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Volume 17, Issue 6 (June2005), all of which are incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety for all purposes.

In some embodiments, a first promotion may be used as a proxy for asecond promotion based on similarity in specification parametersassociated with the promotions (such as category, subcategory, price,retailer, etc.) and/or textual similarity (e.g. an exact match, or anapproximate match such as an edit distance calculation). For example, afirst promotion about which inadequate information has been gathered tomake good recommendations (for example a recently-entered promotion,such as a promotion created less than a day ago, or a promotion that hasbeen presented to relatively few users, such as less than a hundred or athousand users) may be determined to be similar to a second promotion,and those users for whom the second promotion is determined to be a goodrecommendation (for example, based on their behavior as described above)may be presented with the first promotion.

With reference to FIG. 10, a flowchart describing the steps used totransmit offers to the user are illustrated. The user location isdetected as being within a store by any of the methods described above371. Within the store, the user location is further determined by any ofthe methods described above 373. The system searches the user and offerdatabases to determine a relevant offer and transmits the offer to theuser 375. The offer relevance can be determined based upon the WMSalgorithm described above. The offer is accepted or rejected by the user377. Some offers can also be saved and used later. If the offer isrejected, the user can ask the system for another offer 379. The systemcan research the user and offer databases to determine a relevant offerand transmits the offer to the user 375. If the offer is accepted, thesystem can apply the discount to the purchase 381.

In an embodiment, the personalized discount process of the inventiverewards program and redemption methods are automated. In preferredembodiments, electronic credits are applied based on the consumer'sidentification at POS by cell phone number, credit/debit/store cardnumber, store loyalty card number or other forms of identification. Inorder to make the identification possible, the customer pre-registers onthe MOBshop service (via mobile or online app or website) a) his/hercredit/debit/stored value or store loyalty card number(s) to be used forMOBshop discounts, or b) his/her cell phone or other phone number, or c)any combination of the above.

The customer can then apply the discounts and points throughpass-through credits of discounts to consumers' credit or debit or storecards that they have previously registered with the mobile service. Inthis embodiment, the customer may have to pay the full price to thestore, but the discounts and points are credited to the customer'scredit/debit or store card. The consumer may be informed by mobile phonemessage that the discount was credited to their credit/debit/store cardaccount. In another embodiment, the inventive discount system isintegrated with retailers' POS systems and the discounts and points areautomatically deducted from the total tally at the time of purchase.

In an embodiment, a method for automatic redemption of personalizedoffers at the POS or after the purchase, occur via any one or more ofthe following processes: a) pass-through credits of discounts toconsumers' credit or debit or store cards that they have previouslyregistered with the mobile service, b) via integration with retailers'POS systems and automatic deduction from the total tally at the time ofpurchase, c) via POS payment terminals through reduction of the totalamounts, d) via pass-through to stored value cards.

The integration methods b) and c) above may occur via the followinginventive procedures:

In an embodiment, the inventive system can be integrated and operateseamlessly with the POS system of the retail store. A customeridentifies herself at the cashier terminal with one of theidentification methods above (using a pre-registered card or entering aphone number or telling the cashier her phone number or otheridentification number or code). That identification as a “MOBshop user”then triggers a transaction log feed from the retailer to the inventivesystem service processor either live or in a batch mode. The log feedcan be on an item level. For example, Jenny is buying these 5 items, a,b, c, d and e each with an SKU number and price; at the store #123 inSacramento, Calif. The system then determines the applicablepersonalized total discount based on the individual's profile and theitems in transaction log. If the feed is live and the retail store iscommunicating with the inventive system service processor while thetransaction actually occurs at the POS, then the discount information isfed back live to the register, the register takes the discount off thetotal purchase, and the new adjusted total amount is updated on thecustomer's receipt.

In another embodiment of a live feed, the terminal may confirm theidentification information supplied by a user with a server such as aMOBshop server, and receive an encoding of promotions for which thatuser is eligible. Examples of promotions for which a user is eligibleinclude promotions that have been determined to be appropriate to theuser, promotions which are applicable to all users, and/or promotionsthat have been presented to the user. An example of an encoding is astream of zero or more identifiers such as SKUs corresponding to suchpromotions. The terminal may then apply any discounts that apply to theparticular merchandise being purchased to the transaction. In suchembodiments, a transactional feed may be provided (for example in batchmode) to MOBshop, and MOBshop may determine which promotions were usedin the transaction, and may use this information for a variety ofpurposes, such as targeting which promotions to subsequently present tothe user.

If the feed is not live, but delayed, or batched, or if the calculatedpersonal discount information cannot be accepted live by the register,then the discount may be deemed as an adjustment by the retailer's orpartner's POS system. The consumer can be informed through their cellphone (via the MOBshop service) of the discount that is charged back toher/his credit/debit card or store loyalty card. The system can berunning as a cloud system connected to the retailer's or partner's datacenter, as a physical appliance in the retailer's or partner's datacenter, or in a separate hosting environment. Alternatively, the systemcan have software deployed at the POS register level or store processorlevel.

In another embodiment, the inventive system can be used with paymentterminals. The payment terminal can be programmed so that when acredit/debit/store card is swiped at the POS, or a phone number or otherMOBshop identification code is entered (see identification methodsabove), the terminal first calls out via a dial-up or IP connection to agateway of the terminal provider to 1) check whether this card or numberbelongs to a system member, and 2) whether any discount should besubtracted from the total—this before the terminal makes the request forpayment to a bank, e.g. an acquiring bank. To determine 1) and 2), theterminal provider's gateway electronically calls out to the inventivesystem and passes on the customer's card information which can beencrypted, for example via a hash key, and the total amount and storeinformation. The inventive system then determines a personalizeddiscount amount which can be ≧$0.00 for this transaction based on thecustomer's identification, profile, location and other factors, andreturns the discount value to the payment gateway (via electroniccommunication). The payment gateway then electronically sends thatinformation back to the terminal at the POS. Either the gateway sends anew adjusted total to the terminal, or the terminal is programmed tosubtract discount information received from the payment gateway from thetotal purchase amount. The payment terminal then requests the new(potentially discounted) total amount from the bank (e.g. the acquiringbank), rather than the original amount. On the printout receipt from thepayment terminal (if any), the personalized discount may be listed. Inan embodiment, IP-based payment terminals can be used to creditcustomers based upon the redeemed discounts and points. In thisembodiment, the customer may pay the store the full amount of thepurchases and the applied discount and point values can be redeemedthrough an IP-based payment terminal. This can be implemented inshopping malls where there are many system participant stores. Thetransactions can be recorded by the system at the point of purchase. Thecustomer then goes to the terminal to receive the refund. Since thetransaction is processed very quickly, by the time the customer gets tothe IP-based payment terminal, the payment value can be processed andready for pick up by the customer.

Alternatively, when the customer makes a purchase, the store may applythe discounts and points to determine a monetary value. The system orthe store can then provide stored value cards such as gift cards thatcan be used as a form of payment for future purchases at the store.

Alternatively, the card can be used at all participating stores (closedloop card), or at most stores, including those that are notparticipating in the system service (open loop card). The system caninclude a network that has multiple retailers and not just one chain ofstores, therefore, the offers from the various retailers can drive foottraffic from one retail category to another, e.g. from a coffee shop toan electronics retailer and vice versa.

In an embodiment, the inventive system can also track the time of dayand habits of the customer. For example, the system may notice that fooditems are typically purchased at noon if the user is at a shopping mall.In order to adapt to this characteristic, discounts for lunch can beoffered at 11:45. The system can determine that the customer is in amall and transmit coupons for discounts or coupons for a vendor at thefood court in the mall. The system can also determine if the user istraveling based upon the speed and location of the customer. If thesystem detects that the customer is moving at more than 50 MPH on afreeway for 3 hours, it can predict that the customer is driving. Thesystem can then transmit offers for up-coming roadside food if thecustomer is between cities. In other embodiments, the timing of theoffers can correspond to paydays. Employees tend to get paid on thefirst day and fifteenth day of the month. By providing offers soon afterthe pay days, the members may be more inclined to accept offers afterthey receive a paycheck.

The inventive system will also store consumer profiles, track thepurchasing behavior, and thus, continuously improve the offer andinformation targeting and relevance to the user. The customer profilecan include: gender, age, friends, residence type and location,disposable income, mortgage, purchasing history, vehicles owned,favorite stores, favorite items, favorite shopping categories, otherpersonal preferences, etc. Customer information can be obtained invarious different ways. The information can be manually input orobtained from other sources such as social network information pages.The customer may have the option of blocking some personal informationfrom the inventive system. In addition to personal profile information,the user can input offer preferences. For example, the customer may onlybe interested in car accessories, consumer electronics and sportinggoods and may wish to block home improvement goods.

When purchases are made by the customer, the inventive system willrecord the purchases by SKU numbers, or in another form on the itemlevel, if the data is made available by the retail store. The purchasedgoods can then be categorized and the customer's profile stored in thesystem database can be updated. In addition to personal profile updates,the system can produce a cumulative database of buying trends based uponcustomer profiles and demographics. Using one or more of the profiledata inputs, the database can be searched and statistical data can beobtained which can be used to predict what the customer might purchasein the future. This information is particularly important in determiningthe relevance of offers transmitted to each customer. Each of the inputfactors can be weighted differently depending upon the customer.

For example, the inventive system may determine that a customer has apreference for high end stereo equipment based upon purchases made inthe last 12 months. The system may determine that the customer has asignificant disposable income and may test the customer's response tooffers for high end designer clothing. If these offers are accepted, thesystem will continue to make these types of offers. Alternatively, theoffers may be ignored or the customer may manually input a block againsthigh end clothing offers. The system will update the user's profile andgo back to offers that the customer has authorized.

If the system notices significant changes in purchasing, the system candetect changes in purchasing habits and adjust the offers accordingly.For example, if the system detects that the customer has less disposableincome, offers for more practical goods such as consumable stapleproducts can be transmitted. The system can predict disposable incomelevels by monitoring the spending habits of the user. Conversely, if thesystem detects higher levels of disposable income, the system cantransmit offers for luxury items.

In addition to producing offers that are targeted towards customers'interests, the information can also be used to influence purchases madeby consumers. For example, these offers and rewards can lead to desiredeffects such as brand switching, up-selling, larger basket size andmargin, improved retail store experience for the consumer, increasedstore loyalty, consumer “stickiness” which will result in repeat visitsby the consumer, or a shared positive experience. For example, if thesystem detects that a customer is shopping at fashion store A forclothing, but fashion store A is not participating in the inventivesystem as a partner, then the system can attempt to change the buyinghabits by offering discounts on similar goods such as fashion store Bclothing, as fashion store B is part of the inventive system. Theinventive system can also offer fashion store B discounts or offers whenthe consumer gets close to fashion store A (location-based competitiveoffers), if the consumer and the fashion store B have opted in to orrequested such offers. The inventive system can also attempt to convertconsumers to buy higher end and more profitable lines of goods. Forexample, if the system detects that a user has purchased multiplelower-priced patio furniture products from brand D, then it mightsuggest other higher-value items from brand D.

E. User-Generated Shopping Information and Services

Studies show that consumers who ask their trusted friends for advice arenot only more likely to actually complete a purchase, but they alsoenjoy their shopping experience more. In order to engage customers andtheir friends, the inventive system can have additional, “social offers”that are shared by the shoppers' friends and can result in a viralexpansion of the retailer's customer base. In order to encouragecommunications about purchases, the inventive system can award points tocustomers for their social network activity related to stores, productsand purchasing.

For example, in an embodiment, the inventive system can include a“friend shopping feeds” a feature wherein consumers can post specificsavings they made, or offers they find useful, to specific friends orcertain groups of users on the service. Every time those friends clickon such an offer, the poster receives a reward such as points or anadditional discount. In an embodiment, the distribution of the offer canhave multiple layers and provide rewards to each level. The system cantrack the line of purchases made and provide points for each level. Forexample, 5 points can be awarded to an offer poster for each purchasemade by a direct contact, 4 points can be awarded for an offer acceptedby a friend of a friend. The points can continue to be distributed andaccumulated by customers as the offer is transmitted to additionalgroups of friends. Since the points have value, there is a strongincentive for spreading the offers to friends of friends and increasethe viral effect.

In some embodiments, a “team” may be composed of a user who is the team“leader” and selected other users of the system, for example a user'sfriends, or users selected from among the user's friends, or from amongother users. Such teams may be restricted to a maximum team size, whichin some embodiments may relate to a “level” associated with the teamleader, for example a level corresponding to a number of points that theuser has accrued. For example, a higher level may correspond to a highermaximum team size. In some embodiments, a team member, such as the teamleader and/or other team members, may be rewarded for activities of theother team members, or of the entire team. For example, a reward may bea point award equal to a function applied to all points awarded to teammembers (such as 100%, or 50%, or 10%, or a percentage awarded foractivity exceeding a threshold within a time period).

In addition to points for posting offers, additional behavior can berewarded. In an embodiment, rewards are provided for generatinginformation useful to the inventive system such as producing a lay outof a store (“store floor plan”). The system can have a graphical userinterface that allows a floor plan of a store to be produced on a mobilephone. In an embodiment, the cell phone software includes a program forcreating user-generated store floor plans by simply shifting around“graphical blocks” that resemble product categories (e.g. Fashion,Outdoor, Food) on mobile phone touchscreens. Once the layout iscomplete, the layout information is transmitted to the system server,and then made available to other consumers. In exchange for an accuratefloorplan layout, points or discount offers can be transmitted to theproducer of the store layout.

With reference to FIG. 11, an embodiment of the map application isillustrated. The user can map out a basic shape of the store 801 andwithin the store the basic shapes of the different department areas 803are formed using the GUI. The user can move the department areas 803around within the store 801 and designate the entrance 805 in a drag anddrop manner until the map is complete. The completed map is thentransmitted to the system server. Once the system has the store layout,it can transmit the store layout to the customer cell phones when theyare detected within the store and a map is requested. When a customerwalks into a store, the floor plan can be displayed so that the user canquickly find the goods of interest, or the consumer can type in aproduct, and a certain section of the floor plan where the product islocated is highlighted. If location detection is accurate within thestore, the interface can display the user's location and provideguidance for getting to a desire product area or department.

In an embodiment, the system includes a mechanism for consumers toinvolve different groups of friends that can be accessed for differenttypes of purchases. The GUI may allow users to interact with each of thedifferent groups with one button on their phone. The friends can beaccessed to enhance the shopping experience based on which type of storethe consumer is shopping. For example, the user can configure the systemto have 3 specific friends selected from the phone book when shoppingfor electronics, 5 different friends for fashion. In another embodiment,the system can automatically suggest the friends who might be able toprovide advice when the consumer taps an “ask my friends for advice”button or passes on a promotion to relevant friends' mobile phones. Inthis embodiment, the system can review purchases made by phone bookfriends and determine if any recent purchases have been made in the samegeneral category such as consumer electronics or specific products suchas digital cameras.

In an embodiment, the system GUI can also allow a customer tocommunicate directly with a social network that is available through theapplication as part of the social features. The social network of theinventive system can be integrated with other social networks such asFacebook, Twitter, MySpace, HiS, Bebo, Orkut. In addition to leveragingthe existing “social graph” of these networks to build the user base,users thereby can also communicate with friends about shopping-relatedtopics or specific products or offers, who are not currently using themobile inventive system application but who are on the social networks.

In an embodiment, a system user can customize the social networks basedupon different categories of friends, such as “fashion friends”“consumer electronics friends” “school friends,” “work friends” etc. Thesystem can automatically detect which friends to set as a default basedupon location, time and date. The system can switch to fashion friendswhen the user is detected in a clothing store or clothing department ofa department store. Consumer electronics can selected when the user isin a consumer electronics store. Similarly, school or work friends canbe selected during school/work days and hours, Mon-Friday, 8 AM to 6 PM.The inventive system can allow the user to override the default to sendmessages to any selected group or combination of groups.

The system user can then use these categories to control thedissemination of information. The inventive system will also be able tosee how each user has chosen to group their friends. The inventivesystem will have the ability to send out promotional offers, discounts,product recommendations, reviews, ratings and product photos. In somecases the system can automatically transmit rewards to users who are inthese groupings, while retaining the privacy of the individual userinformation. The system can also include features that allow users toeasily share information, offers and advice.

For example, the customer A may find a great deal on a computer andalthough she does not need a computer, she knows that many of herconsumer electronics friends may want one at the sale price. Customer Ais in a computer electronics store and the system has set computerelectronic friends as default. Customer A selects the transmit featureto send the offers and discounts to her consumer electronics friends.These consumer electronics friends can then either accept, ignore orresend the offers and discounts to groups of their friends. The systemcan track the origin of the offer and provide incentives fortransmitting and accepting the offers. In an embodiment, customer A canreceive points for sending the offer and additional points for anyfriends and/or friends of friends who accept and/or use the offer.Customer A may not need the product because she already owns and likesthe product. In addition to sending the offer, she can provide positiveproduct reviews and ratings. A customer can also take a picture of theproduct and post the picture with the product review/rating. Thepositive information can also be stored and accessed for social networkpurchase advice. The system can associate the positive review/ratingfrom customer A with the products SKU and any other friend who wouldlike to access purchasing advice information for the product can accessthis information.

With reference to FIG. 12, a social network interaction between two cellphones 101, 111 is illustrated with the advice application runningthrough the social network. A first user requests advice. The request issent through the server 201 to one or more other user cell phones 111.The second user 201 agrees to assist and the first user 101 transmitsinformation about the potential purchase. Based upon the productinformation, the second user 111 recommends the purchase. The first userthanks the second user for the advice and may proceed to make thepurchase. Since the system server 201 knows that the first user is atthe store based upon the location and content of the communications, itcan award points for communications related to a purchase to the firstand second users.

Points can be awarded to customer A for posting the review/rating(positive or negative) and additional points for purchases of theproduct based upon the review/rating and/or store visits from friendsbased upon the product review. By giving away something of value foractivities that are not excessively time consuming or difficult,consumers are encouraged to visit stores and make purchases and performshopping and social network activities. For example, points can beawarded for consumer based social network activities includingcommunications about store products, store purchases and store visits bysocial network friends. In addition to direct product information,points can be awarded for other related activities. For example, asdiscussed above, maps of the stores can be generated by users throughthe user interface on the mobile device. Points can be awarded forgenerating maps that indicate the locations of product departments orspecific goods.

F. System Architecture

With reference to FIG. 1, the inventive system includes a server 201that communicates with mobile devices 101 owned by consumers through oneor more networks including: the internet 222, cellular networks 219,LAN, WiFi. etc. The server can provide various different servicesincluding: software downloads and the described systemoffer/rewards/social network features. In order to perform the describedfunctionality, the system server 201 is coupled to several databases 203which can include: customer database, purchase database, store database,offer database, etc. When consumers become system members, they downloadthe required software to the phones 101 provided by application server201. The user can browse through the software and select the systemapplication that is compatible with the user's mobile device 101. Whenthe software is selected, the server 201 accesses the software database203 and transmits the software. The phone 101 can be coupled to acomputer 115 having a microprocessor 314 ruing an operating system 316and software 318 and memory 320 for storing the software and data. In anembodiment, the system software can be downloaded through a network tothe user's computer 115. Alternatively, the software can be transmittedby the cellular network directly to the mobile device 101 using themobile device graphical user interface.

Once the software is downloaded, the consumer will also provideinformation that is stored in the service's database on the applicationserver as consumer account and behavior data. The user may have toprovide information and may select preferences. For example, the systemmay ask permission to access social network for personal information,store frequent shopper data, credit card information, etc. This accessto other systems simplifies the set up process because the customer dataalready provided to these services is automatically downloaded to thesystem. However, the user may not wish to allow access and can opt outof providing this access permission. The personal information can beentered manually through an input device on the cell phone 101 or acomputer 115 and transmitted to the server 201 which processes theinformation and stores in the user database 203.

When the system software is set up on the user's mobile phone 101, theservice's GUI provides shopping information to the customer including:a) accumulated points or coins for activities including walking intostores, b) dollars saved today/total displayed is another possibleembodiment of the invention and c) system status displayed—Rookie,Amateur, Expert, etc. The status may change based on rules, for examplebased upon purchase volume and/or frequency of store visits and/orsocial shopping activity with friends, and/or how well the customerknows/utilizes all the system features.

In an embodiment, the inventive system has an offer and rewards filterplaced over the GUI that will provides rules on how the rewards,discounts, offers are disseminated to these customers with differentlevels of shopping frequency and average purchase volume. The system canprovide a geographic deal finder with a map(s) showing deals and offersin the area. The system can provide additional details through the GUIsuch as all member stores in the area and maps with directions to get tothe stores. The system can also provide points to users in exchange formapping out the physical setting of the store in terms of categories ofgoods stocked in the stores.

The inventive system can also provide additional services to systemmembers. For example, some hard to find items can be reserved by systemmembers so they do not have to wait in line to get a limited allotmentof these goods. In an embodiment, the priority for the hard to finditems can be based upon the “level” of the member with new membershaving a lower priority than higher or elite level members. The systemcan also produce special member offers such as: new items, rare items,surprise gifts, in-store events, sneak previews, special store hours andend of offer warnings. In some cases, these offers may be bundled andall run out at the same time. This offer can be transmitted to themember's cell phone in a text message. For example, “You can save $14.28on your favorite groceries if you shop before 4 pm tomorrow. After thistime, all these discounts will expire.”

In some embodiments, a badge may be awarded for activity meeting acertain criterion or set of criteria. For example, a badge maycorrespond to entering or checking into a certain kind of store, orentering or checking in during a certain date, or redeeming a certainoffer or type of offer, or entering a certain store at least a thresholdnumber of times, or entering at least a threshold number of differentstores, or different types of stores, etc. Such badges may be displayedas part of a user's profile, and in some embodiments may enableadditional functionality, such as increased points for entering a store,a relaxation on restrictions applying to points awards, etc.

Some system members can also have the option of a personal shopper. Forexample, the user can be greeted by store managers (opt-in only) whennotified of arrival. For example, the best customers might see a specialbutton on the service that says “Personal shopper?” When they tap on it,a message is dispatched to the store staff that customer A is arriving.The system can also transmit shopping information about the customer.Based upon the stored data, the system may know that the customer likesaudio equipment, and the last purchase was $48 headphones. The storestaff can then offer the latest audio equipment and guide the high-valuecustomer through the store, thus improving the shopping experience, andlikely increase the close rate, basket size and satisfaction level ofthe customer. Manual authentication is also another possibility, and thegiven retail partner could have a unique ID ready to hand out to systemmembers after identifying themselves with a form of physical ID. Thesystem user would then have to manually input this unique ID into theirphone and proceed to receive personalized offers, discounts and rewardsin that method.

In another embodiment, the inventive system can have a “wish list”feature that allows members to indicate items that he or she would liketo purchase in the future. The consumer can enter specific items orcategories she is looking for. For example, the user can enter, 32″ LCDHDTV, and she will automatically see any offers for that item in theservice. The system can also include deal search features that allow themember to search for deals and savings on the wish list items. Thisfeature allows retail store to make offers based on purchase intentuntil the product is actually bought. So far, offline stores do not knowany purchase intent for not regularly purchased items (e.g. a TV set),unless the customer talks to a sales person (but even then, the storecannot stay in touch with the consumer to keep following up until theconsumer actually buys the TV). For example, TV sets are bought onaverage every 7 years by consumers, so previous purchases are not anoption to determine that the consumer is “in the market” for a TV set.This inventive system allows the retailer to know exactly that. Theinventive system can also include a calculator that allows the user toinput the amount of money he or she can spend and the system will applydiscounts/points to let you know what you can afford to buy. The systemcan also determine payment plans being offered by the store or creditcard company and apply these interest rates to the cost of the goodsminus any down payments, the calculator can determine the monthlypayments necessary to purchase the wish list items.

As discussed, the inventive system monitors the customer's location toprovide offers based upon the user's location. This location detectioncan also be used for location-based competitive offers. For example, ifthe system detected the consumer in the parking lot of anon-participating retailer A, the system can identify the type of storethe consumer is visiting and transmit an offer for similar types ofgoods from a participating retail store that is close by. For example,if a member is in the parking lot of a consumer electronics store thatis not a participating retailer, the system can try to determine thegoods that the consumer is shopping for. This can possibly be a wishlist item or on sale item. The system can immediately transmit an offerfor these consumer electronics goods in an attempt to get the consumerto purchase the goods at the participating retailer store(“location-based competitive offers”).

The system is also able to track the effectiveness of the location-basedbanner ads and make adjustments accordingly. Banner ads can be trackeddown to the individual level and measure whether they have a desirableeffect on store visits or not. By comparing control groups who do notsee the banner ad on the service with groups that do see the banner ad,the store visit frequency of the two groups can be compared, and thusthe efficiency of the banner ad evaluated.

In an embodiment, the inventive system can utilize additional featuresof the cell phone to enable additional system features. For example, theinventive system will constantly display offers to the system user.Frequently, the user will not accept the offer or in some situations,the user will want a different offer. In an embodiment, if the user doesnot like the offer, he or she can push a button and/or possibly shakethe phone to cause a new different offer to be displayed. The system candetect the shaking motion with internal accelerometers and based uponthis signal, the cell phone will understand that the original offer wasnot of interest to the customer and update the user profile. The usermay be able to control some of the offer parameters by indicating thatthe user is interested in a specific product, brand, % discount, etc.

In order to provide entertainment, while utilizing the inventive system,the software can feature shopping games which provide challenges to theusers. For example, the system can ask the user how fast can he or shecan find all saved wish list items. The system can have a clock runningand display the running time as the user finds the wish list items. Whenthe task is completed, the system can display a cumulative time andindicate the relative speed compared to other system members or post theresults to a social network web page for friends to view and attempt toimprove upon. If necessary, the user can request the physical presenceof the friends and points can be awarded to the friends if they go tothe same store within a predetermined time.

Another feature of the inventive system is the recordation of thesavings by using accepting the offers. The system can record savingscumulatively, for the day, month, year or for any other set period oftime. Users can monitor their purchases and savings since thisinformation can be automatically recorded in a purchase log. Othersystem games can include challenging each other to save the most. Thesystem can record to a personal page or a social network page, users'record savings in one day and which friend got the best deal on wishlist item?

In an embodiment, inventive system provides an Interactive GUI thatincludes various shipping features. Customer's frequently needdirections to specific product locations within a store. In anembodiment, the system has a product search engine that would aid thesystem members looking for a particular item on aisle within the store.The user can input the product description and press a search buttonthat provides directions. The directions can include a map of the storewith the different categories of products on a map of the store. The mapcan also include the specific locations of the desired goods in thestore and/or a description of the item location, such as Isle 4, Bin 14.If the system can detect the location of the customer the system canalso provide specific directions, for example, turn right at homeappliances and straight 100 feet until you get to the shoe department.If the user's location is known by the system, location based offerswithin store can also be transmitted to the user. In yet anotherembodiment, the system can simultaneously request customer service and astore employee can meet the customer at the product location to explainfeatures and benefits of the product.

The inventive system can also have access to the store web site and/orproduct web site within a store as well as product reviews. When aspecific product is searched, the system can transmit detailed reportson the products that are being offered on discount. The productinformation can include information from the store web site as well asthe product web site. The user is also able to use the product reviewsearch to see what products their rewards points might be able topurchase right at that point. By having all of the information at thepoint of purchase, the user can make an educated purchase decision whichenhances the shopping experience.

Many retail stores have club memberships which can also be integratedinto the inventive system. The users can enter their store loyaltyprogram numbers into the system application on the cell phone, and theapplication will automatically provide special offers or functionalityreserved or only for the store's loyalty program members (e.g. extra $50off for item A for loyalty program members of this store; special sneakpreview of next week's offers only for members).

As discussed above, the system users are able to share information withtheir friends. In an embodiment, the inventive system has a SocialNetwork GUI that facilitates this exchange of information. In anembodiment, the user can ask for advice by selecting a possible purchaseproduct and pressing a button. The system will transmit the advicerequest to the selected friends or groups of friends. In exchange fortheir participation and assistance, they can each receive system points.The social network can also be used to post savings and share potentialdeals and offers with friends. In some cases, the deals can be exclusiveand not sharable or the deals/offers may only be shared with a limitednumber of friends. The social network may allow users to pool or giftpoints so friends or groups of people can purchase the desired goodstogether or as a group gift. The social network also provides a simpleplatform to see what friends are buying. This can be important whenpurchasing compatible goods such as video games and accessories, latestfashion trends, replacement parts for previously purchased products,etc.

The social network also allows for improved game play between differentsystem users and may allow users to increase their points.

G. Rules Engine

With reference to FIG. 1, the rules engine 117 is part of the systemserver 201 and manages the offers and discounts that are provided to theconsumer. The rules engine 117 is the software and programming behindthe interface that the system users will physically see when eitherrunning the application or during authentication, or at the point ofredemption of the accumulated system points.

When a user first becomes a system member, the rules engine 117processes the consumer information, including his or her demographic andlocation, date and time. The rules engine will also have access to thedatabases 203 for: merchant, products, brands, promotions, user data,offer postings and tracking of purchases.

The merchant data stored in the merchant database 203 can include: storelocation information, phone numbers, store hours, parking information,merchandise and inventory information, etc. The product database 203 caninclude descriptions, specification, pictures, size, instructions,compatibility, use requirements, retail price, brand information, etc.The promotions database 203 can include special discounts, discountqualifications, discount locations, discount dates, etc.

The user database 203 can include: demographic, behavior, transactions,points, status, level, etc. When a user first becomes a system member,certain of the information stored for the member may be input by themember. Once the basic information is input and stored, the system cantrack the behavior, transactions, points, status, etc. If changes arenecessary, the user can edit the information through the cell phoneinput or by a system administrator.

The offer postings and tracking of purchases database 203 are used afterthe system is operating. The system presents and records offers fordiscounts and/or points. As offers are presented to the user, the systemcan track the purchases made through offers.

The points database records not only the points accumulated by themember, but also processes redemption of points for merchandise or thetransfer or sharing of points. The rules engine will also award pointsto the consumer based upon consumer activities, as deemed by the systemand the retailer. In this regard, the rules engine can manage a “points”“redemption” and “offers” database 203 that enables a user to convertaccumulated points into merchandise and accept offers.

H. System Operation

The inventive system is flexible and can be configured to perform any ofthe described tasks. A typical implementation of the inventive systemcan be simply to provide offers and discounts which are incentives forcustomers to enter a store. For example, a customer may need a certainproduct and walks into a store and provides system programidentification. In an embodiment, this information can be transmitted bythe consumer by pressing a button on his or her mobile phone when theconsumer enters a store. Alternatively, the member identification can beprovided by: a mobile phone number, credit/debit/store card number,store loyalty card, etc. In order to simplify the identificationprocess, card readers can be available to read the identificationinformation from the cards.

Once the user is identified and in the store, the system can awardpoints to the customer which are immediately recorded and displayed onthe mobile phone for entering the store. When the customer enters thestore, the customer location information is transmitted to rules engine.The rules engine identifies the store and returns offers for that storebased upon that consumer's information. The offers are displayed on themobile phone. The offers can vary by product and type of offer. Forexample, some offers can be limited time, some offers can be shared withmember friends, some offers can be exclusive to the recipient, someoffers can be sent/distributed not based on a particular level ofmember. A certain client may want to send out a promotional discount toall females social network friends, regardless of their level. Becausethe system can be configured in almost any manner, the user can controlthe distribution of offers. As the customer shops, additional points canbe awarded for the time spent by the customer in the store.

The user can accept offers in different ways. In a preferred embodiment,the member brings the items to the cashier and provides system programidentification. Alternatively, for example if the preferred item is outof stock at the physical store, the user can order the item through amobile device and have the item delivered to user's home or anotheraddress from that retailer's online shopping division. The user can alsoignore the offer or ask the system for different offers. When purchasesare made using the offers, the discounts and point redemptions can beapplied in various different ways. The system can also include securitymeasures. For example, the system can request that the user provide thelast 4-digits of their Social Security # or Zip-Code, in order toprovide redemptions.

In the description above and throughout, numerous specific details areset forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the presentinvention. It will be evident, however, to one of ordinary skill in theart, that the present invention may be practiced without these specificdetails. In other instances, well-known structures and devices are shownin block diagram form to facilitate explanation. The description of thepreferred embodiments is not intended to limit the scope of the claimsappended hereto. Further, in the methods disclosed herein, various stepsare disclosed illustrating some of the functions of the presentinvention. One will appreciate that these steps are merely exemplary andare not meant to be limiting in any way. Other steps and functions maybe contemplated without departing from this disclosure or the scope ofthe present invention.

1. A method for detecting presence comprising: monitoring WiFi wirelesscommunications at a wireless communications device; detecting a proberequest, wherein the probe request is associated with a request from anoriginating device to determine an available WiFi network; determiningthe originating device associated with the probe request, wherein adevice identifier associated with the originating device is a componentof the probe request; inferring the presence of a consumer at alocation, wherein the consumer is associated with the device identifierand wherein the location is associated with the wireless communicationsdevice; and transmitting data relating to the device identifier.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the device identifier is a MAC address. 3.The method of claim 1, wherein the data relating to the deviceidentifier is transmitted to a server.
 4. The method of claim 1, whereinthe data relating to the device identifier is transmitted using WiFi. 5.The method of claim 1, further comprising allowing the originatingdevice to connect, and providing internet access for the originatingdevice.
 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining thatthe device identifier matches a predetermined pattern corresponding to atype of device.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving asecond device identifier associated with a user device, wherein the userdevice is running software associated with a service and wherein theuser device is associated with a user account at the service,determining that the device identifier matches the second deviceidentifier, and updating the user account to include the inference ofthe consumer at the location.
 8. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising providing an award to the consumer, responsive to theinference of the consumer at the location.
 9. The method of claim 1,further comprising providing an offer to the consumer, responsive to theinference of the consumer at the location.
 10. The method of claim 1,wherein the location is associated with a retail store.
 11. The methodof claim 1, further comprising generating the data relating to thedevice identifier, wherein generating the data relating to the deviceidentifier includes anonymizing the device identifier.
 12. The method ofclaim 11, wherein anonymizing the device identifier includes hashing thedevice identifier.
 13. The method of claim 1, further comprising sendinga message to the originating device.
 14. The method of claim 13, whereinthe message includes advising that an application be run on theoriginating device.
 15. The method of claim 13, wherein the messageincludes information relating to a discount available at the location.16. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining commonvisitors between the location and a second location, responsive toinformation relating to a second wireless communication deviceassociated with the second location.
 17. The method of claim 1, whereinthe data relating to the device identifier is transmitted to a partner.18. A system for detecting presence comprising: a wireless antenna; awireless receiver; a transmitter; and a processor configured to detect aprobe request received via the wireless receiver, wherein the proberequest is associated with a request from an originating device todetermine an available WiFi network; determine the originating deviceassociated with the probe request, wherein a device identifierassociated with the originating device is a component of the proberequest; infer the presence of a consumer at a location, wherein theconsumer is associated with the device identifier and wherein thelocation is associated with the wireless communications device; andtransmit data relating to the device identifier via the transmitter; anda memory coupled with the processor, wherein the memory providesinstructions to the processor.
 19. The system of claim 18, wherein thedevice identifier is a MAC address.
 20. The system of claim 18, whereinthe data relating to the device identifier is transmitted to a server.21. The system of claim 18, wherein the data relating to the deviceidentifier is transmitted using WiFi.
 22. The system of claim 18,wherein the processor is further configured to allow the originatingdevice to connect, and provide internet access for the originatingdevice.
 23. The system of claim 18, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to determine that the device identifier matches apredetermined pattern corresponding to a type of device.
 24. The systemof claim 18, wherein the location is associated with a retail store. 25.The system of claim 18, wherein the processor is further configured togenerate the data relating to the device identifier, wherein generatingthe data relating to the device identifier includes anonymizing thedevice identifier.
 26. The system of claim 25, wherein anonymizing thedevice identifier includes hashing the device identifier.